June 17, 2011 – ETHIOPIA – A 5.5 magitude earthquake has occurred in the Eritrea region of Ethiopia where the Nabro volcano is presently erupting. A this phase of the eruption, such large earthquakes don’t usually occur under a volcano- so there could be more to this eruption than meets the eye. From what we can tell, there still appears to be very little coverage of this event or someone on the ground monitoring the phases of this eruption – so the geological extent of what’s actually occurring with this portion of Africa is still not fully known.

I dont understand the media blackout, If it wasnt for this site I wouldnt know a thing about this? The only mention I saw was about Clinton having to cut a visit short due to the eruption? Does anyone know why this is…… Chile and Iceland made worldwide headlines but not this one?? Im no expert but this one seems to be esculating….. It make me so cross were not being informed. Thank goodness I found this site. Blessing Alvin & Everyone xx

Over 80% of what is posted here never makes mainstream news…but this in particular is a strange one
as this is a serious situation going on there now and maybe they know more than they want the general public
to know about…Only for this blog i would be in the dark about whats going on

It’s Africa, it’s remote and it’s not affecting western flights (yet). The media have decided, bizarrely, that the public don’t care about this, which is odd considering the recent focus on iceland and chile. I did think the shallow m5.5 today was odd.

That site DOES have videos…sorry…I missed the link for them at the vary beginning…I was looking for them right on that page but they are on another page…the linkk for them is at the top in the summary.

They have 3 videos so far but I’m not sure if the most recent one, #3, is from this the 2nd eruption or not…I don’t think so.

Maybe the experts know, that Nabro is a supervolcano and they don’t want to make panic! Maybe they think: “Oh, it’s only Eritrea! Nobody in America or Europe will care! When it snows next June we will tell them!”

Ilvar Khorstoon on June 17, 2011, 12:17 PM
While Nabro has clearly quit smoking (yeap it’s good for your health, specially with such age), it seems to be far from quiet. Djibouti’s Arta Observatory (http://www.oga.dj/index_fr.html) shows 4 more earthquakes, including a 5.8, which corresponds to the 5.5 from USGS and 5.6 EMSC. The last one occurred some 7 hours ago.

Arta Observatory has levels a bit higher than other centers but some, including me, consider this perfectly natural as they are closer to the quake zone (just as a reference I shall note Japan pointed to higher values on their recent earthquake).

Meanwhile, all I have seen today were MODIS frames, showing some large field with anomalous temperatures, which is highly suggestive of an efusion process going on there. However, with such squeezed frames, lots of smog and the markups themselves, it is really hard to figure what is going down there.